Roundtable: March Primary Recap

Speaker 1: 00:01 Election day went smoothly. For the most part in San Diego County, at least. The results brought smiles and cheers from the winners, uncertainty for others, and some predictable outcomes as well. As a surprise or two, we analyze the results and ask what they mean for the November general election. I'm Mark Sauer. The KPBS round table starts now. Speaker 2: 00:30 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 00:31 welcome to our discussion of the week's top stories. I'm Mark Sauer and joining me at the KPBS round table today. Michael Smollins, columnists for the San Diego union Tribune. David Garrick, who covers city hall for the union Tribune, KPBS investigative reporter, Amica Sharma and freelance journalists. Seth Coons, well, rarely has the smart money looked so dumb. A week ago, the democratic nomination for president was Bernie Sanders to lose Sanders was surging. Joe Biden's campaign was on life support and many among the chattering class were looking forward to super Tuesday, maybe a knockout blow, but not so fast. Biden, one big in South Carolina last Saturday and use the Tuesday vote across more than a dozen States to forge a comeback for the ages gone. Now our Amy Klobuchar, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buddha, judge, looks like we learned to pronounce his name for nothing. And Elizabeth Warren. So Meetha start us off here. Give us your take on the big open question. What happened? Speaker 3: 01:28 Well, a sound Cliburn happened triggering a series of events that none of us could have predicted when Sam Cliburn, the democratic Congressman from South Carolina endorsed Joe Biden last week. Jim [inaudible], um, none of us could have predicted the profound effect it would have had on South Carolina voters. I think we all knew, we all understood that Joe Biden was going to take South Carolina, but we didn't know by how much, but Cliburn did. He has said that, um, he knew that the people in his state were waiting for him to weigh in on who he thought could beat Donald Trump in November. And so voters in South Carolina ended up giving Joe Biden a huge victory. I think he won 30% more of the vote than Bernie Sanders did. And then I think from that point on, a Clarion call went out from South Carolina and the first people to hear that call were a democratic presidential candidates. Amy Cobra char and Pete Buddha judge, they drop out of the race. They know that they can't, they haven't made inroads with black voters, but they don't just drop out of the race. They very quickly get behind Joe Biden Speaker 1: 02:40 and manage crucial those before super Tuesday. And you think they spent all that time on super Tuesday. They wouldn't want to give up their chance to see how they would do that. I think they felt like the party right are good. Right, Speaker 3: 02:50 right. And I think that what happened from that point on was very psychological voters in the super Tuesday States stopped and said, well, if these rivals, former rivals can get behind Biden, then maybe we should choose them too. They go on to give him a victory in 10 of the 14 States. So I think that that Claiborne's endorsement, the huge victory in South Carolina, the followup endorsements by Pete Buddha, judge and Warren brought, uh, assented clarity. Speaker 4: 03:18 Yeah, that's key too. It's not just any two people who endorsed him, but it was the two other major moderates. The model really consolidates the monitor that's behind one person. It wasn't Warren or Sanders, obviously it wouldn't be Sanders, but no Speaker 5: 03:28 polling to show all of this Michael. It was just happening so fast as a meet this. Well it shows how sort of fluid and I guess, eh, you know, thin in a certain way. Um, uh, Sanders support was in South Carolina that they were even thinking they might overtake Biden. Some polls showed him really close, a close loss would not have had the effect that this has had. But uh, Biden really, uh, ran away with it. And as everybody is saying, the establishment to kind of coalesce behind Biden, that early endorsement was by those two was pretty, uh, particular interesting. But I think what happened is it just signal to a lot of voters whose primary thing is to who can beat Trump. And they always thought Biden early on. I mean, remember just for, you know, for poll after poll showed him ahead and then he just got into trouble and suddenly that snapped back. Uh, we'll see where it goes from here, but certainly thought so. He, uh, right Polosi will argue you got yourself impeached going in. Speaker 4: 04:22 Oh, your first step might have been to go back one step farther as Biden had that strong showing in the debate leading up to all of this because I think prior to that he had stumbled in some debates and maybe not have been impressive and he was more aggressive that night. And I think maybe that was the first step of it. Speaker 3: 04:35 I still thought that that Biden's victory in South Carolina was going to be narrow, as you've pointed out. And we still thought it was going to be isolated to South Carolina that it would not hold for super Tuesday and we didn't think those other moderate, uh, candidates would drop out and get behind them. Okay. Speaker 5: 04:53 It's subtle. I think it's a little overstated. I mean, I don't think that, I wasn't surprised by the results of super Tuesday at all. I think that that Biden won the States that he was expected to win, especially with Klobuchar and Buddha judge fault dropping out. So that being said, like I, I think that there is a sense of, of, of the media, you know, creating like this headline that the Biden's back or you know, but it's now Biden's uh, uh, you know, nomination, right? Speaker 4: 05:17 Yeah. I mean, in other words, I agree with he can win and people are voting for him because they think he can win. But two weeks ago we were talking about, you know, Sanders having the, well that's it. [inaudible] his dilutes shift, Speaker 5: 05:32 the narrative. It shifted. The, the votes have shifted. I mean, it just, it changed dramatically. And you know, that our question we'll find out because who wants to project into the future? What just happened in just the last week? But you know, the question will be, is there sort of a ceiling on Sanders support? We've got Michigan coming up and uh, is it Janet, Jennifer Granholm, the former Michigan governor, she has a split, more importantly, the current Michigan governor has supported who's now a popular, yeah. But also Florida. And I think that's where Bernie Sanders really has problems. We'll see what happens in Michigan. But polls show Biden way, way ahead in Florida. There's a substantial African American vote and we know how well he does with, and he has always had support there. I think also the Cuban American vote because you know, Sanders has had that history with Cuba. And uh, I just think that, um, you know, plus, you know, it's been a real shift Speaker 1: 06:21 back to turnout here now. California's kind of notoriously slow in counting votes. San Diego County is slow. A turnout was, was encouraging for Democrats in a lot of these States. We're talking about what we really, really don't even know the turnout in California or San Diego County. Speaker 5: 06:35 Well, we've got an idea, at least in San Diego County and I think you could find out, uh, get an idea in a statewide, but San Diego County, um, you know, had, what, 350,000 votes to count after a election day and stole the County if it's down to like two 90 now and every day they update it. But I think once you, if you add up the ballots left to be counted with ones that have counted, they're looking at about 47% give or take, which isn't bad for a primary. I mean, usually primaries have been deadly low in the past. [inaudible] a Texas boy they turned out was, uh, how'd that go statewide? I, I don't know. We'll find it. Well, I made the point earlier that I feel like, uh, because it moved from, from June to Mark, there may have been some folks who maybe weren't aware of it. They may have been part of the reason I know Sanders was frustrated that he didn't get as many young voters to come out in California as he had hoped. And he wanted to keep one California, but maybe not as by wide a margin as he expects. Speaker 1: 07:24 How'd he do in, in San Diego County, Sanders and Biden and Speaker 5: 07:27 about 3% I think so. Yeah. He Sanders Sanders beat by him about 3% I think that's awesome. And nobody AI in it. And nobody has mentioned the fact that a lot of us, you know, when voted early or, and maybe voted for [inaudible] the 8%, it was very interesting cause I had a Buddhist judge, people were saying, Oh, can I have a do over because they mailed the ballot in early. But I think as the vote count continues, I mean Sanders has won California, quote unquote, but, uh, there's a lot of votes to be counted and that may affect the delegate, uh, distribution, right. He's not going to get this big. My point is in terms of turnout, a lot of people were holding onto their ballots late because I wanted to see what happened. Uh, and uh, some people that didn't or have sort of regrets hold on mind a little bit, a little bit longer than I thought. Speaker 1: 08:09 Uh, as the woman on the panel, I did want to bring up Elizabeth Warren. Of course, she has since dropped out, not before like the other candidates had before the election, but uh, but did on a couple of days ago. So what happened there? I mean, she was surging and recently as October, she was seen as the national front runner, front runner in Iowa. Speaker 3: 08:28 Well, I mean, there's been a lot of debate about that over the past 24 hours. Uh, was she too progressive, too liberal? Um, for Bernie Sanders voters? Was she not liberal enough? I think we should probably discuss this in the larger context of women presidential candidates. I mean, you could say that about all of them where they choose centers where they too much to the right. Um, I think the more insightful conversations to talk about how we perceive women, uh, in the United States. I mean, we, we have enough faith in them to, to elect them, to be us senators, to elect them to be a congressional representatives. We're, we're, we're fine with them sitting on the U S Supreme court, but there's something about the office of the presidency of the United States that's the most powerful position in the world. And we, I think as a society associate power with masculinity in a way that other countries in Europe and in Asia don't, they're able to transcend gender in a way that we're not. I remember, I remember back in 2016 on election day, I watched an interview with a black voter who was a Democrat. She said she voted for Trump because she didn't think a woman could be president and make the right decisions, make the right calls because women were too emotional. Speaker 5: 09:52 [inaudible] not dissenting view, as I said last week, but let's not forget Hillary Clinton won. You got 3000 or 3 million more votes than Donald Trump, despite what Trump says, it wasn't a portion properly. Uh, you know, you can sort of make the, the, uh, you know, alternative reality argument that, uh, there was a lot of missteps in that campaign by misjudging what their momentum was going into the election. Right. Had they done some things differently, had she won, we might have a different conversation. I often wonder if if Barack Obama didn't win, what would that mean for black candidates? Probably would be another threshold. We're going to have to believe that one there cause I want to come back to San Diego now. We've got a lot the lot to get to. Let's bring it back home. Racist, succeed. A mayor, Kevin Faulkner, Democrat top Gloria tops the field as expected tight race for second. Speaker 5: 10:37 Where are we right now, David? And while we thought we had a, a runoff between Democrat tie glory who got more than 40% of the vote and a six candidate field, which is pretty remarkable, uh, with I was going to be him and Republicans, Scott Sherman, and it still looks like that's the case. But after the first dump of a late arriving ballots, Barbara Brie closed the gap on Sherman significantly by like 30%. So I guess we're going to have to wait and see between now and April 2nd whether she can continue to close the gap. If she continues at the rate she did yesterday, she actually would pass him. But you don't know where those votes were from quickly. You referenced April 2nd. Explain that to them. That's the deadline that the registrar voters has to certify the election results. It's exactly one month after election day. So they probably won't take all the way till then. Speaker 5: 11:14 But with this many votes, 290,000 still the count, it may take close to that long. So brief OD hired Michael and just a little short if these results old. Yeah. And we'll, we'll see. Because as I just said, that, that a lot of Democrats were holding onto their ballots and certainly some of those will go to Todd Boyer. Maybe some will go to Scott Sherman. But remember it's not, she doesn't have to catch up to Todd. Gloria chess catch up to Scott Sherman. And if Sherman made his big appeal to Republicans, Republicans probably voted early because they were, you know, they were voting for Trump and Sherman and there wasn't much of a, you know, question there. So it'll be interesting just to see if that sort of late effect has it. But one just thing about her that she could, you know, just got caught in the, uh, it was going to be hurt. Lay down the wall. Yeah. And, and, uh, I think she was trying to, she was struggling to find, okay, what's her lane and what's her theme? Uh, she sort of went from the kind of entrepreneur, a very competent, great resume and some city hall experience to kind of morphing into the, the neighborhood protection. I hesitate to use the word NIMBY thing because I don't think that's quite accurate, but, uh, suddenly it became more of a development issue that I think will, if she gets into the general election Speaker 6: 12:21 throughout the campaign, kind of struggling to, to hone our message and maybe adjust it. It's surprising because if you look at the results that I know we're going to talk about measure a and B in a minute, but like if you look at the results from those measures, San Diego still seems to be in this NIMBY kind of mindset, which, you know, you would think would translate to two votes for Bree. But I, I didn't see it. I mean she ran, in my opinion, a very excellent campaign in the regard that she really did separate herself from Gloria, but with, you know, four Democrats in the race. And, and one Republican. It just wasn't enough Speaker 4: 12:51 during the war. They believe in moral victories. I mean, I don't know if any of us do, but you know, Barbara, Bree, she really faced labor, went against her and chosen Gloria. Even though they were very similar ideologically, the democratic party went against her even though they were very similar, you know, on a lot of issues. Exactly. And so for her to actually be this close and get 24 three 23 and a half percent of the vote, I mean, I guess you could argue that's a moral victory. I don't know what it's worth. But yeah. Speaker 3: 13:14 So I do have a quick question though. The, the P, if, if Barbara BARBRI makes it into the runoff, do her, or actually if she doesn't make it into the runoff, do the people who supported her vote for Sherman or do they vote for Gloria L'Oreal? Speaker 4: 13:28 I had, I had a political science telling me this would be an historic margin of victory. I mean, if it's Gloria and Sherman, it seems like Gloria could get 70% of the vote. I mean, I don't want to be held to that, but it seems like that's very possible because it's not just that Sherman is a Republican, like Faulkner Sherman is the most right wing Republican on the council. He wouldn't have done the climate action plan like Faulkner. So I just feel like if the voters are aware of the differences between these two candidates based on registration and ideology, I think Gloria would win by a mile. Let's talk about the council here. Several council races on Tuesday. How's that shaping up and what's the council may be going to look like if you do have a new dynamic? Well, let's talk in just in general. We have five new council members no matter what basically. Speaker 4: 14:04 So I mean there's a lot of open seats, so it's going to look very different. I've had a nine. Exactly, yes. Um, and so, and, and basically, um, you, you had three, uh, you're going to have three progressive Democrats, uh, three, three races where productive Democrats will face each other in November. And then you're going to have to sort of old fashioned Republican versus Democrat battles in two districts that used to be safely Republican. But because since Trump, even before that, but especially since Trump, registration in San Diego has shifted and it's become more of a blue city. So you have to sort of inland suburban districts that used to be Republican than and now may go to Democrats. And I would say the only surprise on Tuesday night was that Democrats actually were the first place finishers ahead of the Republicans in those two races. Very surprised. It's very surprising, especially a a district, uh, a seven in particular, cause you had one Republican against three Democrats. So you'd figured the would finish first. Speaker 5: 14:52 He still finished second. So that was, that was pretty surprising against a newcomer too, right? Yeah. Speaker 6: 14:56 No. Yeah. I mean, I just want to echo everything you said. Like, I was very surprised to see like, like Marnie Von Wilbert, like, you know, when, and I, you know, I remember profiling her, uh, you know, about, you know, five or six months ago and was very impressed with her, but also being a pragmatic, uh, you know, objective person, Ted, I am sometimes, um, you know, I, I did not give her a, a, you know, a really good chance and to see her finish first in that district, again, Mark Kersey seat, you know, pretty safe kind of, I know he switched to being independent or whatever, but [inaudible] it's not, it's not, it would not be shocking to see the city council be eight to one Speaker 5: 15:32 regardless of what happens. The democratic majority is going to increase as it has been over time of the San Diego city council. I mean, I'm not that old that a D said it'd be a Republican city causes places to get that from people around the state. We talk about the, you know, the partisan differences and so forth. Now we're going to be looking at the nuance differences among Democrats. And you know, there's sort of the progressive and moderate, but you know, then it comes down to growth issues, which don't always fall on neatly on partisan lines. So it'll be an interesting, uh, aspect. And for the next mayor, which probably is going to be Todd and Gloria, maybe not, uh, but you'll have a democratic mayor and, or if Barbara Bree, uh, gets in dealing with the democratic council, but that doesn't mean everything's going to be copacetic. It's a key point to make that we've had divided government for quite a while since the democratic majority has been in place. You have a Republican mayor and you're going to have very likely a democratic mayor. So coupling that with a seven, two or an eight one democratic majority, and there's an opportunity, I don't know if they'll take it, I don't, they'll do it well, but there's an opportunity for them to really change a lot of things. Speaker 1: 16:33 Well, let's, uh, let's shift over to to Congress right now. Uh, we have, and we talk a lot about the show. We had two really interesting races here. Uh, 53rd and the 50th districts. And in the 53rd, uh, Sarah Jacobs had a big night followed by a Georgia at a Gomez. Uh, so Dave, do you think, uh, two Democrats battling it out in November? The differences there? Speaker 5: 16:55 Um, I don't know. I mean, I think Georgia did poorly. I think even though they both made the runoff, I think the gap between them, I think surprised a lot of people. Um, and it's kind of a weird situation where Susan Davis announced she was resigning kind of suddenly people started to announce they were going to run kind of out of nowhere. I don't think Georgia had the time to Mount a strong campaign. Maybe this extra eight months she has now will help. But I think if you looked at results on Tuesday, I think she's gotta be pretty discouraged. Well, and I mean, let's face it, uh, Sarah Jacobs had, you know, a deep well of money. I, you know, the Jacob's family and her grandfather, a cofounder of a Qualcomm, she was seasoning by running in a race before she's been involved. She's not a neophyte. Speaker 5: 17:31 And I think even though that was up in North County, I think that name identification, you know, there was a lot of regional media on that. So she's not an unknown person. And just in a personal way, I have no real data on this, but I don't, I think that Jacob's name is pretty good in this town. I don't know that they're beloved, but it's, you know, order KPBS. I mean, they've had a lot of influence and employ a lot of people and done a lot in terms of moving technology. So I think all those things certainly helped her. Georgia Gomez does have eight months. Um, uh, she started off a lot lower than we thought she did in certain polling. But the question is what kind of support is she going to get? I mean, it's going to be a democratic seat and they're really not that much different on, on the big issues of, uh, facing Congress and our, you know, it's not where you would think Democrats, the democratic party, whatever. We're going to expend a lot, a lot of money to help Georgia as much as they love Georgette Gomez. You know, they've got to save their fire more for partisan racist. Yeah. And to Michael, sorry to Michael's point, I mean these two people are going to be Speaker 6: 18:29 ostensibly applying for a job where they are going to have job security. I mean, you know, barring some like blankie redistricting or something like that [inaudible] or whatever, they are applying for a job that they are probably going to hold for at least 20, 30 years. So real quick, I mean, if they want it, you know, when they don't run for another another, uh, before we move to the, to the, uh, the 50th real quickly Janessa gold Speaker 3: 18:50 openly gay Marine veteran, a lot of media buzz. We've talked about her on the show, but that just comes down to name recognition. I think she had ideas that really resonated with a lot of people, but people didn't know her in the way that, that they knew. Uh, Georgette Gomez, then you her name at least, and that they knew Sarah Jacob's name. It's still surprisingly poor showing I think Speaker 5: 19:12 when we saw her name as low as no. Yeah. But I, I, you know, I, I think that the, the, the media has a little bit to do with that. Not in a Poe necessarily positive way. Certainly gave, uh, Janessa gold back, a lot of due attention because of the quality she brought and so forth. But I think that sort of elevated the expectation in our minds. And I think the same with Georgia. At Gomez, we cover city hall very closely and she's a city council president. There's a lot of that district that's not in the city of San Diego and I don't know just how well known she was there even though we think that she's sort of a big name. Speaker 6: 19:42 All right. Let me stay with you Michael. Let's go over to the 50th year Democrat. It looks way ahead on paper, but that can be misleading. We get into the general, right. Speaker 5: 19:49 Well, I'm our company jr who did a, you know, it came close to winning two years ago against, uh, the wounded, uh, scandalized, uh, represented Duncan Hunter who has of course stepped down. Um, he finished, uh, ahead of the pack, but it's a very Republican district. Uh, Daryl ISO looks to be the, the person that's going to be on the ballot. We know a lot about him. He was in Congress for 18 years. He's got deep pockets. Uh, he knows how to run a very tough, and in this case it was a pretty ugly campaign and mostly against Carl Demira were against it. The race really was for a second place. Uh, but, um, the total Republican vote, and I forget the percentage, is considerably more than we are competent to target. Do all those votes flow to a [inaudible]? Probably not, but most of them probably will. So the expectation is it's, you know, going to be Darryl ice it back in Congress again. Speaker 3: 20:35 But there is something interesting that district, and this is a, an obscure poll that might've come out in your newspaper, um, in January and it asked voters in that district what were the most issues to them in a congressional candidate and basic character. They said character combined with two contradictory lines of thought. One was, um, they wanted, uh, someone who would hold the president accountable and then they wanted someone who would rally around the president. I do wonder if there is a tug of war among some Republicans in that district that might just give a Mark happened to Shara chance Speaker 1: 21:15 it was ringing. It was a real mind. I mean, he, he, he Speaker 5: 21:17 of course has a chance, but just the, the dynamics aren't set up to them. You raised some good things [inaudible] points. Uh, I think, you know, it's parsing the vote in 2018 and how he did a lot of Republican voters probably were disgusted with, uh, indictment Hunter and went to him. Uh, you know, the Democrats were looking at some, some early numbers in this rates and said, you know, they like Amar, he's on a great job, done good job fundraising. Right? But, uh, if he runs against anybody against Duncan Hunter, he's probably not gonna win. But you know, who knows what will happen between now and November because to your point, he, if he can't win against the scandal plague. Yeah, exactly. I saw who has so much experience and a lot of money. I says hitch his wagon to Trump and who knows whether that goes up or down. Speaker 1: 22:00 Right. All right. I'm in the district and it may be, I'll just the last word on that district. They may be a Sinai or for Carl DeMaio here, he said a string of losses in a row. Now let's go to our measures here and take them one by one. Measure C tax increase on tours here needed two thirds, majority fell short. David does that high bar. Is this going to be challenging court? Maybe a potentially. You've got to rethink this high bar of super majorities. I think you had to get the voters to be thinking. I don't know. But there's a Supreme court ruling that gives them some hope. I don't know from a state Supreme court room, correct. State Supreme court. Uh, a colleague of mine, Laurie Weiss proposed a story yesterday that I think that the folks behind this are probably not going to focus on that. You don't know. Maybe you can focus on what's maybe the next effort cause they really feel the expansion of the convention center is crucial. Uh, I guess it's surprising considering that this had support on both sides and support pretty much all the support you can have with very limited opposition. And it still didn't get to two thirds, just barely Mike, Speaker 5: 22:55 64%. I was sort of surprised it did really well. And I think when the final votes are counted, it's going to be just a hair short. So they're going to be very frustrated. But you know, the rules is rules and it's unfortunate I think. I think that that you were hinting at that. Will there ever be a reconsideration? I mean is that super majority 60 40 but it's, you know, it's tied into prop 13 and the anti-tax movement, it's very difficult to buy. You don't buy into the narrative that some people are speculating about about being challenged in court and it may be a, I will just have to see, but I think that that what David also was alluding to is it, yeah, that's going to be a long, hard slog or, and there are cases that are kind of moving ahead on whether the citizens' initiative, which is it should only take a simple majority, but there's wasn't a clear ruling at the Supreme court one that did sort of open the door so it could a while. And um, Speaker 6: 23:46 you know, they're debating that they, they certainly laid this out in a way to challenge that, but we'll just have to see if them do it. And it was, it was volunteers. They would have to raise enough money to handle the legal costs for it, which could be millions and millions. Somebody asked me like, what's next as far as like the convention center expansion. And I didn't really know how to answer it. Do you guys know? I think that they were going to have to reassess it. Just take a look at that whole area there because there's also going to be, even if they got that far that we know people just are adamantly opposed to expanding on the waterfront. Sure. So there's a lot to hurt. Let's talk a little, Speaker 1: 24:15 what about the, uh, what I call the urban sprawl measures, um, a and B kind of confusing. Speaker 6: 24:21 Oh, we're split on that. So yeah, it was very, I was very confusing for a lot of voters. I think that, you know, this to me was the most surprising. It was almost as if San Diego voters said, uh, you know, no, I don't want more development. And also don't ask me to vote on these things anymore. You know, it was like they, it was like, they, they, they wanted one thing, but because the, the narrative was like, Oh, Hey, like if you vote yes on one, you should vote no on the other anti development spirit. Right, right. And again, like the, the NIMBY spirit, you know, or is still a little there and the [inaudible] hasn't really caught on. I don't know. I mean I think there is politicians who are all about more housing. Speaker 3: 24:57 The other interpretation though is that I think voters possibly got a little bit more sophisticated. They thought, well, it is a little absurd for all of us across the County to be voting any time the board of supervisors votes in a huge, uh, housing development project that amends the general plan. However, there is this particular one North of Escondido that we don't like. Speaker 6: 25:20 I, I think that there's also something to be said for these are still at least measure eight is still really close. Yeah. You Speaker 1: 25:26 get the last word and we're going to have plenty more shows as we go on to November. We are out of time. There was a lightning round. Thank you all very much. That wraps up another week of stories at the KPBS round table. I'd like to thank my guests, Michael Smollins and David Garrick at the San Diego union Tribune. I meet the Sharma of KPBS news and freelance journalists, Seth Coombs. Reminder, all the stories we discussed today are available on our website, kpbs.org I'm Mark Sauer. Thanks for joining us today and join us again next Friday on the Roundtable.